The country’s economic development plans announced by successive governments after 1989 have become a permanent part of the landscape of public debate in Poland. The degree of implementation of these strategic concepts, whose colloquial names often honored the names of their creators, is widely regarded as an important factor in assessing the effectiveness of the economic policies of those in power. Today, facing the great opportunity presented by the funds of the National Reconstruction Plan, but also the great demographic, climatic or technological challenges, one has to wonder whether meeting all these circumstances is possible in a society that does not understand the macro and microeconomic processes taking place.

Most studies indicate that the level of Poles’ economic knowledge – both practical and theoretical – remains too low. Recent years have brought long-awaited work on the draft National Financial Education Strategy – the document is currently awaiting official enactment. The specially created Financial Education Fund has accumulated funds that could allow the implementation of numerous activities to raise the level of financial literacy in Poland. Without sustained, embedded in the formal education system, raising the competence of current and future: entrepreneurs, investors, depositors, consumers, development opportunities may be lost.

Can we afford to be ignorant?
Is there an alternative to economic education?
Will the only teacher of economics for future generations of Poles remain another crisis?

Debate in the framework of the Year of Economic Education 2024